Jacobs opens with the blinds drawn and the fire bright inside, the night cold and wet outside, and Mr. White saying, "Hark at the wind." What does this opening prepare?

Sergeant-Major Morris says the fakir's spell was meant to show "that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow." What does the line prepare?

Morris says he thought of selling the paw but will not, because "It has caused enough mischief already." He then throws it on the fire and tells Mr. White, "Better let it burn." Why does he try to destroy it?

Morris says of the paw's first owner, "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death." What does this detail foreshadow?

Saying good-night, Herbert jokes that his father will find the cash in a bag on his bed "and something horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket your ill-gotten gains." What does the joke foreshadow?

Left alone at the dying fire, Herbert sees faces in it, "the last face was so horrible and so simian" that he stares, then reaches for water and instead grasps the monkey's paw. What does the moment prepare?

Which of these happens FIRST in the story?

Mr. White says "I wish for two hundred pounds" while Herbert strikes chords at the piano. What happens next?

The stranger from Maw and Meggins tells the Whites their son was caught in the machinery. Which of these comes LAST in that scene?

Herbert is buried in the huge new cemetery two miles off. Which of these happens LAST?

In the story's last page, which of these happens LAST?

The knocking at the door begins "so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible," is repeated, comes a third time, then swells to "a perfect fusillade of knocks." What does this escalation do?

The story's final sentence is "The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road." Why does Jacobs end there?

Jacobs writes only that Mr. White "frantically breathed his third and last wish." What does the story withhold there?

Through the last scene the narration stays with Mr. White while his wife runs downstairs to the door. What does that structural choice do?

As the knocking swells, Mrs. White cries, "I forgot it was two miles away." What does that line do at that moment?

Mrs. White screams "It's Herbert!" and runs for the door; her husband catches her by the arm and cries, "For God's sake don't let it in." Why does he hold her back?

Woken in the night, Mrs. White demands the paw and tells her husband to wish their boy alive again. Which reason does she give?

Arguing against the second wish, Mr. White says his son has been dead ten days, and adds, "I would not tell you else, but—I could only recognize him by his clothing." Why does he tell her this now?

When his wife starts up and cries, "What's that?" at the knocking, Mr. White answers in shaking tones, "A rat... It passed me on the stairs." Why does he say it?